esting daughter that of Jessica. Their reception was most enthusiastic; but in that scene where the Jew is informed of his daughter being carried off, the whole audience seemed to be quite carried away by Macklin's acting. The applause was immense, and Pope, who was standing in the pit, exclaimed :

"That's the Jew that Shakspeare drew."

Macklin was much respected in London. He was a native of Monaghan, and a Protestant. His father was a Catholic, and died when he was a child; and his mother being a Protestant, he was educated as such.-Dublin Weekly Telegraph, Feb. 9, 1853.

One more version is given in the Irish Quarterly Review, and quoted approvingly in The Leader, Dec. 17, 1853.

The house was crowded from the opening of the doors, and the curtain rose amidst the most dreadful of all awful silence, the stillness of a multitude. The Jew enters in the third scene, and from that point to the famous scene of Tubal, all passed off with considerable applause. Here, however, and in the trial scene, the actor was triumphant, and in the applause of a thousand voices the curtain dropped. The play was repeated for nineteen successive nights, with increased success. On the third night of representation all eyes were directed to the stage-box, where sat a little deformed man; and whilst others watched his gestures, as if to learn his opinion of the performers, he was gazing intently upon Shylock, and as the actor panted, in broken accents of rage, and sorrow, and avarice-" Go, Tubal, fee me an officer, bespeak him a fortnight before: I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will: go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal," the little man was seen to rise, and, leaning from the box as Macklin passed it, he whispered :

"This is the Jew

That Shakspeare drew."

The speaker was Alexander Pope, and, in that age, from his judgment in criticism there was no appeal.

No reference to contemporary testimony is given by these historians.

Galt, in his Lives of the Players, Lond. 1831, does not notice the story.

Pope was at Bath on the 4th of February, 1741, as appears

from his letter to Warburton of that date; but as he mentions his intention to return to London, he may have been there on the 14th. That he was not in the pit we may be confident; that he was in the boxes is unlikely. His health was declining in 1739. In his letter to Swift, quoted in Croly's edition, vol. i. p. lxxx, he says:

Having nothing to tell you of my poetry, I come to what is now my chief care, my health and amusement; the first is better as to headaches, worse as to weakness and nerves. The changes of weather affect me much; the mornings are my life, in the evenings I am not dead indeed, but sleepy and stupid enough. I love reading still better than conversation, but my eyes fail, and the hours when most people indulge in company, I am tired, and find the labor of the past day sufficient to weigh me down; so I hide myself in bed, as a bird in the nest, much about the same time, and rise and chirp in the morning.

I hope I have said enough to stop the farther growth of this story; but before laying down my pen, I wish to call attention to the practice of giving anecdotes without authorities. This is encouraged by the newspapers devoting a column to "varieties," which are often amusing, but oftener stale. A paragraph is now commencing the round, telling how a lady took a linendraper to a barber's, and on pretence of his being a mad relative, had his head shaved, while she absconded with his goods. It is a bad version of an excellent scene in Foote's Cozeners.

TALFOURD.

The noble sentiments uttered by Justice Talfourd in his last moments gave a charm to his sudden death, and shed a hallowed beauty about the painfully closing scenes of this great man. They may be placed with a passage from his beautiful tragedy of Ion, which may be considered as a transcript of those thoughts which filled his mind on the very eve of quitting the high and honorable duties of his earthly course. It forcibly illustrates

the loving soul, the kind heart, and the amiable character of this deeply lamented judge.

After speaking of the peculiar aspect of crime in that part of the country where he delivered his last charge, he goes on to say:

I cannot help myself thinking it may be in no small degree attributable to that separation between class and class, which is the great curse of British society, and for which we are all, more or less, in our respective spheres, in some degree responsible, and which is more complete in these districts than in agricultural districts, where the resident gentry are enabled to shed around them the blessings resulting from the exercise of benevolence, and the influence and example of active kindness. I am afraid we all of us keep too much aloof from those beneath us, and whom we thus encourage to look upon us with suspicion and dislike. Even to our servants we think, perhaps, we fulfil our duty when we perform our contract with them-when we pay them their wages, and treat them with the civility consistent with our habits and feelings -when we curb our temper, and use no violent expressions towards them. But how painful is the thought, that there are men and women growing up around us, ministering to our comforts and necessities, continually inmates of our dwellings, with whose affections and nature we are as much unacquainted as if they were the inhabitants of some other sphere. This feeling, arising from that kind of reserve peculiar to the English character, does, I think, greatly tend to prevent that mingling of class with class, that reciprocation of kind words and gentle affections, gracious admonitions and kind inquiries, which often, more than any book-education, tend to the culture of the affections of the heart, refinement and elevation of the character of those to whom they are addressed. And if I were to be asked what is the great want of English society-to mingle class with class-I would say, in one word, the want is the want of sympathy.

Act I. Sc. 2. After Clemanthe has told Ion that, forsaking all within his house, and risking his life with strangers, he can do but little for their aid, Ion replies:

It is little :

But in these sharp extremities of fortune,

The blessings which the weak and poor can scatter
Have their own season. "Tis a little thing

To give a cup of water; yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drain'd by fever'd lips,
May give a shock of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite than when nectarean juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.
It is a little thing to speak a phrase
Of common comfort, which, by daily use,
Has almost lost its sense; yet, on the ear
Of him who thought to die unmourn'd, 'twill fall
Like choicest music; fill the glazing eye
With gentle tears; relax the knotted hand
To know the bonds of fellowship again;
And shed on the departing soul a sense,
More precious than the benison of friends
About the honour'd death-bed of the rich,
To him, who else were lonely, that another
Of the great family is near and feels.

REVERSIBLE EPIGRAMS.

In a small work, entitled Specimens of Macaronic Poetry, 8vo. 1831, the following verses are stated to have been written by some poet (not named) in praise of Pope Clement VI. or Pius II., but of which learned authorities do not agree, though it is stated in the book called Les Bigarrures du Seigneur des Accords, p. 173, of the edit. 1662, that the lines were written by Philelphus on Pope Pius II. It seems the poet was afraid he might not receive such a reward as, according to his own estimate, he deserved, and therefore retained the power of converting his flattery into abuse, by simply giving his friends the cue to commence from the last word, and begin backwards.

Laus tua, non tua fraus; virtus non copia rerum,

Scandere te fecit hoc decus eximium,

Pauperibus tua das; nunquam stat janua clausa;

Fundere res quæris, nec tua multiplicas.

Conditio tua sit stabilis! non tempore parvo

Vivere te faciat hic Deus omnipotens.

not.

When reversed, it reads thus:

Omnipotens Deus hic faciat te vivere parvo
Tempore! Non stabilis sit tua conditio.
Multiplicas tua, nec quæris res fundere; clausa
Janua stat, nunquam das tua pauperibus.
Eximium decus hoc fecit te scandere rerum

Copia, non virtus; fraus tua, non tua laus.

The following are other verses of the same sort:

The first verse is from a Catholic, the second from a Hugue

Again, a third :

Retro mente labo, non metro continuabo;

Continuabo metro; non labo mente retro.

A tutor, explaining one of the odes of Horace to his scholars, after the explanation of each ode dictated in hexameter verses the ode he had explained. He did this, he said, as an exercise. It cost him some trouble; he hesitated sometimes in his dictation, and substituted other words occasionally. His pupils thought the composition had been prepared. Some thought he would not succeed in his effort, and others maintained that, having begun, it was a point of honor to complete his task. The context gave rise to the distich.

There is another clever line :

Sacrum pingue dabo non macrum sacrificabo.